


magic tree house

by iwillwalk500miles



Series: sunflakes misadventures [2]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Male-Female Friendship, Platonic Relationships, Self-Indulgent, Sun Wukong-centric, Tree Houses, i'm in love with both of them so naturally it was about time i fleshed out sun more, weiss isn't good at this but she tries for him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:02:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25130569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwillwalk500miles/pseuds/iwillwalk500miles
Summary: “You protected that boy.” She said, voice soft in a way he’d never heard before. “You stepped between him and that man the moment you laid eyes upon him.”“Uh.” He fidgeted, scratching at the back of his neck, his tail waving around frantically behind him. “That man did some really bad things, and he said a lot of bad things too.” He looked away from her. “No kid deserves to hear that kind of crap from an adult.”“And you wanted to hurt him.” Weiss said, voice steady and tone conversational.Sun blinked, staring at her for a moment. Nobody really liked talking about things like that, not with him. “How’d you know?”Weiss smiled at him, all teeth. “Because I wanted to hurt him too.”That, he’s pretty sure, is the moment that they became as thick as thieves.Or;Sun and Weiss build a tree house.
Relationships: Weiss Schnee & Sun Wukong
Series: sunflakes misadventures [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1820491
Comments: 12
Kudos: 98





	magic tree house

“I think I’d be better off not opening my mouth ever again.” Sun began conversationally.

“Pardon?” His friend peeked over her book, looking at where he had thrown himself lazily on two of the common room’s beanbag chairs.

“I mean, talking to people, saying things...” He huffed out a sigh. “It’s just hard sometimes.” He buried his head in his hands, fluffing up his hair—blond tufts of it sticking out every which way.

“You’re confiding in me about a deep personal issue.” Weiss said slowly.

“Yeah, I guess.” Sun admitted with a smile. “Was it a mistake?”

“Never.” Weiss said firmly, tossing her book to the side and leaning forward with blazing blue eyes, like fire if not for the obvious ice metaphor in there somewhere. “Tell me.”

So he did. He explained how it felt sometimes, missing what everyone always just seemed to _get._ He explained how it was hard to listen, how people thought he was rude sometimes, how draining it was. Sun liked to think that he was a confident guy, that he could hold a conversation with anyone and everyone, and that was true sometimes—but that didn’t stop that pit, draining and all encompassing, from digging away into his chest.

He told her of how constricted he felt, weighed down by the obligations and the people around him, unable to move freely. 

Weiss nodded, and he knew that she wasn’t good at this, that she might _never_ be good at this—but she was listening to him, attentive and hyperaware of him. When he finished speaking she stared at him for a good, long moment.

“I will not give you advice, because I have none.” She said, moving toward him, kneeling in front of where he was splayed out. "But I will be here to listen and support you, however long you will have my company."

“I know.” Sun smiled at her, and even though everything around him felt heavy the expression was bright and easy. Weiss made it easy for that to happen, for things to shift into happiness when they had no reason to be. He was thankful for that, thankful for a lot of things about her.

She watched him, pressing a hand to his cheek and shooting him a soft look. “Would you like to build a treehouse with me?”

Yes, actually, he would like that. He'd like that very much.

They find the tree in the forest, big and strong—with branches extending out from the top, perfect for making a little house. It’s obvious that Weiss is a bit uncomfortable out here, with the dirt and the mud and the occasional mosquito or two, but he can tell that she loves the tree just as much as he does. They look upon it together, side by side, pressing their hands to the rough bark.

“I think.” Weiss said, “That this is a good place to stop.”

“I think.” Sun said, “That this is a good place to start.”

Weiss snorted, moving her hand over his, gently pressing him further into the wood. “You always do that.”

“Do what?”

“Turn what I say into something positive.” Her face is angled away from him, but he thinks that he sees a small smile. “The most mundane things, too, I’ll say something like...” She paused. “I’ll say something like, ‘it’s raining outside today’ and you’ll go ‘let’s go play in it.’”

“Playing in the rain is fun, if you know how to do it right.” Sun pouted, pretending to slump to the side, a playfully hurt expression on his face.

“Yes, you’ve shown me.” She turned to face him, smile a little rueful. “You’ve shown me quite a lot of things, Sunlight.”

He grinned right back at her. “Of course, milady.”

They start building it as soon as they can, both of them dragging heavy materials into the forest, not bothering to ask for help from anybody else. Sun and Weiss aren’t often like minded individuals, but they’re similar enough (possessive enough) to want this to be entirely and totally _theirs._ This behavior is expected of his friend, it is not, however, expected from him.

Maybe it’s because of the kind of man he is, one who wants to help, wants to keep the world thriving on smiles and laughter and love. He’s that man, of course, he’s always been that man—but he’s this one too, a little possessive and a little proud and a little wild.

Maybe that’s why he gets along so well with Weiss, maybe she sees those aspects in him, small though they may be, maybe she sees them and dares not flinch or falter.

Sun Wukong is not a dark person, not with his name, not with the golden halo of hair around his head or his gaze sometimes too bright. He is not dark, not with his smile filled with sunlight, not with his hands stained gold. He blinds others with this, his kindness, he blinds them sometimes to what he truly is—his teeth glittering and shining into their eyes, causing dark spots in their eyes that averted where his faults were.

Weiss stares him down through it anyway.

The first time they truly become friends, she is reluctantly helping him nurse some injuries he got from getting into a fistfight with a random man on the street. It was entirely coincidence that they were at the same place at the same time, and Weiss had been cold to him—(though she was cold to most, so he didn’t take it personally)—when they came across the most bone chilling sight.

Sun hadn’t hesitated.

“I’m not always good with words.” He apologized, wincing as she pressed an ice pack to his face. “I tried to defuse everything, but... well, no dice.”

“You protected that boy.” She said, voice soft in a way he’d never heard before. “You stepped between him and that man the moment you laid eyes upon him.”

“Uh.” He fidgeted, scratching at the back of his neck, his tail waving around frantically behind him. “That man did some really bad things, and he said a lot of bad things too.” He looked away from her. “No kid deserves to hear that kind of crap from an adult.”

“And you wanted to hurt him.” Weiss said, voice steady and tone conversational.

Sun blinked, staring at her for a moment. Nobody really liked talking about things like that, not with him. “How’d you know?”

Weiss smiled at him, all teeth. “Because I wanted to hurt him too.”

That, he’s pretty sure, is the moment that they became as thick as thieves. 

Nobody likes the fact that they are friends. Well, that’s actually not true, but no one is exactly _comfortable_ with it. It isn’t super obvious, not at first—the both of them are used to odd looks (though for very different reasons.) It isn’t until he catches Jaune looking like someone killed his pet goldfish when Weiss hugs Sun that he realizes it.

He tries not to think about it.

He fails.

“They...” Sun tilted his head a little. “They didn’t expect this.”

“This?” Weiss asked, heaving some wooden planks over her shoulder and moving them closer to the tree. She wasn’t used to working like this, but she was willing to learn, and he was all too happy to help.

“Us.” He said, looking down at his gloved palms. “As friends.”

She paused, brushing her hands on some overalls that were too big for her. (He had let her borrow some, privately he believed she was better off buying her own, but she had insisted and so he had relented.) “Ah.” Weiss sucked on the inside of her cheek a little. “How do you figure?”

“Jaune—”

Weiss immediately scowled.

“—he looked like his goldfish died, is all.” Sun finished, a little lamely.

“Who cares what that imbecilic waste of space thinks?” She snarled, fists clenched tight at her sides.

Sun blinked. “Wow you really don’t like him much, huh?” He understood why, of course, but the depths of her dislike took him by surprise.

She let out a sigh, crossing her arms and looking away. “He asked me out again, thinks he’s _wearing me down_.”

Sun frowned. “He’s an ass sometimes.”

Weiss snorted, leaning against their tree—( _their perfect, wonderful tree, which had the skeleton of a home resting on top of it_ )—and sighing. “He doesn’t understand why I say no to him, and when I do it he disregards it.”

Protectiveness surged up inside of him. “Do I need to talk to him?”

“What good would that do?” Weiss asked, voice quiet. “Everyone would just tell him to try again, no matter the consequences, and they will look at you differently if you hurt him.”

“I wasn’t going to hurt—”

“Do not lie to _me_ , Sun Wukong.” She said, looking him in the eye. “You know full well any words you say would be accompanied by a fist, whether it be on accident or not.”

“I’m not good with words.” Sun replied.

“Yes.” Weiss smiled at him. “Which is why it would devolve into a brawl, I think.” She paused for a moment, “Jaune often overestimates himself.”

Sun laughed a little, but then fell silent. He had to explain to her somehow why this bothered him, why everything that came with this situation just felt like it was completely and utterly _wrong._ “Jaune has always been nice to me but..." He grimaced a little. "I don’t like the way he treats you, like... like you're just some sort of _prize_ for him, like he's only trying to date you just to prove that he could.”

She looked at him for a moment, assessing him. Her eyes glittered, like the sight of the sunlight hitting the snow, the icy reflection all together warm and cold and awe-inspiring. Then she walked forward, coming in close to him and wrapping him in a gentle hug. They were both a little sweaty, and it was almost too hot to be this close to each other, but Weiss gripped him a little tighter anyway. “You are a kind man.”

And the way she said it, as though he was the first one she'd ever met before, as though her life had been filled with men doing nothing but the bare minimum, of men being even worse than that. He almost couldn't stand it, that realization that Weiss may have never met a genuinely good man before, that she'd lived isolated enough that he was all that she got. 

If Sun was all she had in that respect, if _Sun_ was the one that she looked at with that kind of _distinction_ —

He didn't know what he'd do.

“I’m not though.” Sun whispered into the top of her head. “I’m not a kind man for being a decent one.”

“We got off topic.” Weiss said, cheek resting against his shoulder. “Why do you suppose everyone looks at us, what do you think that they see?”

He thought that they saw opposites. He thought that they saw a rich girl and poor boy, he thought that they saw a faunus and a human, he thought they saw someone cruel and someone kind, he thought that they saw the warmth of the sun and the chill of the moon. He thought they saw things that embodied them that didn’t actually embody them, only their perceptions on who they must be, and what they must have been was opposites.

But they weren’t opposites, they had their differences same as anybody else, but they also had their similarities.

(And he privately thought that they were alike enough to make others uncomfortable.)

“They see what we want them to see.” Sun said to her. “And then they come up with their own definitions to what they think we mean, to who they think we are.”

Weiss gripped him just a little bit tighter, and Sun responded in kind.

“I think it’s coming along pretty great, Snow Empress.” He told her, grinning as he positioned his hands on his hips, his tail waving excitedly behind him. “Do you wanna help me put in the windows, milady?” He asked with an over exaggerated wink and bow.

“Of course.” Weiss said, already used to his behavior and ignoring him, stretching out her arms. She rolls her shoulders, walking towards him as they move to work.

“Hey, how much did this stuff actually cost?” He asked, furrowing his brow as they lifted the pane of glass to the base of the tree. “I mean, I was doing some research—”

“ _You_? Doing _research_?” Weiss gasped out dramatically, pretending to almost fall over. “Be still my beating heart.”

“Oh hahaha, you’re so _funny_ Weiss.” Sun rolled his eyes, cheeks burning a little. “But still, I was checking it out—”

“Don’t worry about it.” She waved off his words. “I’m rich, remember?”

And even though it wasn’t that funny, Sun laughed.

“Do you remember when I said I felt they didn’t see us?” He asked after they were done for the day, laying in the forest and watching the stars twinkle in the night sky. His arms were pillowed under his head, Weiss using his stomach as a—( _‘kind of uncomfortable, Wukong, honestly would it kill you to skip a day or two at the gym?’_ )—pillow.

“Yes.” She answered him, shifting so that she was looking up at him. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, you too?”

“Mhmm.” He hummed. “You see me.”

“And you see me.” She responded. “Not everything, but enough.”

He thought for a moment, echoing her, “Not everything, but enough.” He smiled. “You always do that.”

“Do what?”

“Turn what I say into something comforting.” He closes his eyes, relishing the feel of the moonlight and her gaze on his skin. “I’ll tell you something, and you’ll tell me something back that always makes me feel better.” His lips curved into a grin, a laugh building in his chest. “I told you how I felt and you asked me if I wanted to build a _treehouse_.” 

She scoffed, and even though he isn’t looking at her he thinks that he could feel her embarrassed flush. “I thought you’d appreciate a spontaneous invitation to something, and I knew that you liked trees so...”

“I’m not critiquing you, bro.” His voice was softer than before, less laughter in his tone. “I’m thanking you for being my friend.”

“Always.” She said, and he believed her.

“Do you think it’s ever going to get easier for me?” He asked her after they were done with the treehouse, sitting inside and flopped lazily on the bean bags they’d stolen from the school’s common room. “I mean, talking to people.”

Weiss put down the book that she had brought with her, staring at him for a long moment. The way she watched him made him feel like she saw everything, like she’d pried his ribcage open and was staring at his beating heart, a stuttering bloody mess. She only looked at him like that when she knew he needed to see it, only examined him when she knew he wanted it.

Sun was thankful for that.

“I don’t know.” She said after a second, leaning back into the chair they'd managed to drag up the treehouse. Weiss glanced out the window, and he could see the sunlight framing her face and showering over her—bright enough to make anyone else close their eyes. “I think it’ll become easier to bear, I think that one day you may get through an argument without saying the wrong thing, and I think that I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

And it wasn't a promise, because Weiss didn’t promise things like that, because Weiss couldn’t bear to tie herself to others unconditionally, but Sun was happy with her words anyway. She _thought_ these things, she _believed_ them—the way she said it, like she had seen something inside of him and concluded _herself_ that things might change. 

It meant more than an empty promise.

“You’re a great friend.” He said to her.

“I know.” She responded, shooting him a half-smirk, eyes glittering cockily.

He grinned. Sun Wukong loved Weiss Schnee, and she loved him _right back_. He didn’t know if it would be forever, if it would be permanent, but in that moment she saw him and thought to herself _‘friend’_ and that meant the world. 

It was quiet for another long moment, the both of them smiling at each other.

“I leave, like a lot.” Sun said after a moment. She deserved a warning, just in case.

Her expression softened, and she leaned forward, her face leaving the sunlight that it had been basking in. “I know that too.”

He swallowed and tried not to avert his gaze. “I don’t want to leave you behind.” He said, because he _didn’t_ and he needed to make sure that she knew that before the inevitable happened.

“You won’t.” Weiss said simply, not moving any closer to him but watching him with serious eyes.

“You don’t _know_ that.” Sun rolled around, turning his back to her and bringing his knees up near his chest. He gripped at his necklace, holding onto it like it was the only thing anchoring him to that spot.

“I do.” Weiss said, and he heard her move toward him, felt her settle just behind him but not touch him. “I know because when you stowaway on the next boat to Vacuo or Menagerie or even Mantle I won’t hold it against you.” A soft laugh and a gentle hand running through his hair. “I would never hold your nature against you.”

And maybe that wasn’t the healthiest thing for her to say, maybe it was a little cruel of her. But Weiss was a cruel person, sometimes, and he would never hold that against her. (Like she would never hold _this_ against _him_.) “You would wait for me?” He asked, voice strained.

“ _Always_ , Sunlight.” Her hand paused for a moment, as though surprised that he would even ask, before returning to carting through his hair. “Besides, every once in a while I’ll go with you, everyone needs a vacation sometimes.”

“You’d come with me?” He asked, turning to look back at her, eyes wide. 

He hadn’t expected it, but he should’ve. Weiss was his friend, she understood him better than a lot of people, of course she’d want to see what he did when he looked at the world. Of course she’d want to understand more than she already did. Weiss was always consumed by the desire to _know_ , always taken by her burning curiosity.

Why was it such a surprise she might want to learn more about him too?

Yeah. Yeah it was.

“Why not?” Weiss asked, smiling down at him—though it was tinged with an expression he couldn’t make sense of in that moment. “This place... the only thing keeping me here is my honor, my pride. I think I could use a break from it every now and then.”

“I hope I don’t forget you.” He closed his eyes up tight, swallowing roughly. “Because I forget, y’know? I forget until the very last second, I’ll forget to call or to say hello and goodbye, I’ll _forget_.”

He does. He forgets all of that and more, these things slip his mind easier than anything ever has. The small things that are secretly big, the big things that are secretly small—he’d forget. And if he forgets her, forgets _Weiss_ , how could he ever possibly be worthy of saying that they were friends?

“You don’t have to remember everything.” Weiss said, very gently. “You just have to remember to answer the phone.”

He opened his eyes, seeing his friend tower over him, brushing his hair away from his face with her hands. Hands that were not made to build up, but _tear down_ —to rip and pull and steal the life from—and allowed himself to be comforted by them. “I hope I remember you.” He said.

“And if you don’t,” Weiss began, “I hope you know _I_ will never forget _you_.”

Sun allowed himself a watery smile. 

Even if he lost his grip on her, and forgot her in the depths of a new city or country, _she_ would never lose her grip on _him_ , never forget _him_.

She _knew_ him, not everything, but _enough_ —and he was sure that that was all that mattered, in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> i love the most recent version of jaune arc, but before his character development i believed firmly that he could die by my sword
> 
> anyway, i love my sunflakes duo


End file.
